Despite the angry face, she was actually having a smashing time with her extended family. I do admit, the intensity she is eyeballing me with is unnerving.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
To Pool or Not to Pool
This picture is the best argument I've ever seen for joining the pool.
Every year we toy with the idea of re-joining our local pool at the Hilton (also known as the Hinkley Hilton) to enjoy the many pleasures a cold refreshing dip can offer.
The summer money hemorrhage has begun to take it's toll with sports and leisure camps raising prices (in DC it's almost mandatory to attend) and our vacation rental climbing steadily upward every year. The extra thousand or so it costs for three months of pool membership starts to look far less appealing.
Confessions of a Borderline Aerophobic
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."-- Helen Keller
There is nothing I love more than traveling to far flung places and soaking up all that these destinations have to offer. I also revel in the fact that I have , for the most part, vanquished a demon that threatens to snuff out the embers of many a potential globe trotter. Fear of flying.
Let me start with full disclosure. I was raised by parents with vastly different attitudes toward risk, the Jekyll and Hyde of adventure. My mother was was the white hot fist of fear and my father was a fly by the seat of your pants, devil may care reckless type. I would watch my mother white knuckle it on every flight we ever took together(until we started drugging her), while flashing an uneasy smile so as not to panic me. My dad, on the other hand peered fearlessly out the window enjoying every turbulent moment in the air. I have vivid memories of sitting quietly on the hood of our Chevy Impala just outside the landing strip of our local airport and glancing periodically at my mother's agonized mask of terror while we watched my father take flying lessons for his much sought after pilot's licence. Knowing my mother as well as I do, I also suspect some of that horror came from knowing they had let their life insurance policy lapse and a life of leisure would not be ours were he to perish in a fiery crash.
When I began to fly with some regularity, she began to crack a bit around the edges, dropping little fear nuggets about the "odds", keeping track of crashes and and airline safety records. "Quantas is very safe, they've never crashed" she'd parrot, sounding eerily like Ray Babbitt.
I began to wonder if the fear of flying itself was a metaphor representing something else entirely like the fear of letting go or fear of some new age cliche like not spreading your wings and being all you can be and embracing success. Then I realized that I didn't have that much hidden potential stifled away and it was probably just the residual effects of my mother's morbid imaginings of the kind of terror that is exclusively reserved for those going down in a terrible aviation disaster. "Just think" she'd ponder aloud "of how frightened and helpless those poor people were right before the end". Thanks mom, ick.
I was determined to fight back against the crippling wave of anxiety even if I had to brainwash myself and drug her (eventually I did both). Helping her understand the principles of aviation and the sensationalized media response to accidents did some good. However, I had no clever come back for her main concern about the high casualty rate per incident. "There are no fender benders in the sky" she'd chirp.
Over time I learned to sit back, relax and really enjoy every trip. Layovers became a time to people watch and read long ago abandoned books. Flights had fascinating (and sometimes famous) individuals to talk to and final destinations were the start of a whole new adventure.
Dad still jet sets and we still have to medicate my mom, but she takes her pill joyously and passes out cold until we wake her and help her down the tarmac to begin the next leg of our journey..the dreaded taxi ride. That, however is a whole different story.
There is nothing I love more than traveling to far flung places and soaking up all that these destinations have to offer. I also revel in the fact that I have , for the most part, vanquished a demon that threatens to snuff out the embers of many a potential globe trotter. Fear of flying.
Let me start with full disclosure. I was raised by parents with vastly different attitudes toward risk, the Jekyll and Hyde of adventure. My mother was was the white hot fist of fear and my father was a fly by the seat of your pants, devil may care reckless type. I would watch my mother white knuckle it on every flight we ever took together(until we started drugging her), while flashing an uneasy smile so as not to panic me. My dad, on the other hand peered fearlessly out the window enjoying every turbulent moment in the air. I have vivid memories of sitting quietly on the hood of our Chevy Impala just outside the landing strip of our local airport and glancing periodically at my mother's agonized mask of terror while we watched my father take flying lessons for his much sought after pilot's licence. Knowing my mother as well as I do, I also suspect some of that horror came from knowing they had let their life insurance policy lapse and a life of leisure would not be ours were he to perish in a fiery crash.
When I began to fly with some regularity, she began to crack a bit around the edges, dropping little fear nuggets about the "odds", keeping track of crashes and and airline safety records. "Quantas is very safe, they've never crashed" she'd parrot, sounding eerily like Ray Babbitt.
I began to wonder if the fear of flying itself was a metaphor representing something else entirely like the fear of letting go or fear of some new age cliche like not spreading your wings and being all you can be and embracing success. Then I realized that I didn't have that much hidden potential stifled away and it was probably just the residual effects of my mother's morbid imaginings of the kind of terror that is exclusively reserved for those going down in a terrible aviation disaster. "Just think" she'd ponder aloud "of how frightened and helpless those poor people were right before the end". Thanks mom, ick.
I was determined to fight back against the crippling wave of anxiety even if I had to brainwash myself and drug her (eventually I did both). Helping her understand the principles of aviation and the sensationalized media response to accidents did some good. However, I had no clever come back for her main concern about the high casualty rate per incident. "There are no fender benders in the sky" she'd chirp.
Over time I learned to sit back, relax and really enjoy every trip. Layovers became a time to people watch and read long ago abandoned books. Flights had fascinating (and sometimes famous) individuals to talk to and final destinations were the start of a whole new adventure.
Dad still jet sets and we still have to medicate my mom, but she takes her pill joyously and passes out cold until we wake her and help her down the tarmac to begin the next leg of our journey..the dreaded taxi ride. That, however is a whole different story.
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